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You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

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Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#251

Post by edoceo »

tony101 wrote: post #246
leereeves wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the nuance you describe, but the situation I described is, at times, a problem with Section 230. For example: > When a US Army reservist found herself at the center of a conspiracy about the coronavirus earlier this year, her life was upended. > Hoax peddlers on the internet falsely claimed that Maatje Benassi was somehow the world's COVID-19 patient zero. Over time, conspiracy theorists posted at least…

My understanding is that you would sue the person who originally posted the content. You can sue "John Doe" and subpoena the social media companies and internet service providers for information to identify the poster. https://revisionlegal.com/internet-law/defamation-attorney/i...

Seems reasonable, just costs a lot of money. The cost of harassment should out-weigh the cost of protection here tho.

A) post video to YouTube for $0

b) contact lawyer to subpoena YT and then sue a jerk? $50,000

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#252

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

vharuck wrote: post #151
meekrohprocess wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't believe so. Any individual can easily create a website and publish whatever they like. It costs maybe $100/year and takes a couple of hours for an inexperienced user to set up a Wordpress blog with manually-moderated comments. Nobody's speech would be censored if Section 230 were repealed. Instead, platforms would be treated as though they had consciously decided to publish every publically-available comm…

>It costs maybe $100/year and takes a couple of hours for an inexperienced user to set up a Wordpress blog with manually-moderated comments. It would also cost however much a lawyer charges for helping to moderate every submission. Because I doubt the average WordPress blogger is familiar with all possible laws the submissions could violate. Or can make correct judgements based on precedent for things like copyright…

Setting up your own Wordpress blog can be done with a domain name and server hosting outside the United States, and with some effort this can be done anonymously. In that case, you don't need to worry about Section 230, you only have to worry about the (possibly laxer, possibly stricter) local laws. The reason that big social media sites are vulnerable to this particular US law is because they are businesses that chose to incorporate in the USA.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#253

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

h_anna_h wrote: post #34
erichocean wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every alternative to Twitter is shittier. It's practically a law of nature.

This is quite wrong. The fediverse is a lot better, has less noise, and much less toxic than twitter.

I tried the fediverse, only to find just as many constant reminders of the culture wars there as on Twitter, though the bulk of fediverse servers have selectively federated in order to ensure that views represent one end of the ideological spectrum. If you are the sort of person who prefers to avoid discussions about political and social issues, then the fediverse is no escape.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#254

Post by xxpor »

humanrebar wrote: post #205
recny wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with leaving it to the courts is, people who own small niche forums can't afford to fight legal battles. This will leave an internet for those who can (i.e the big players).

Also, courts have a habit of leaving arcane technical details to regulators and then we end up back at government regulation of internet speech.

The alternative is leaving it up to corporations so the current status quo doesn't seem that bad. (See everyone that wants to repeal Chevron deference)

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#255

Post by Terretta »

karldcampbell wrote: post #190
glasss wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Today its primary effect is to give an impenetrable legal shield to giant tech corporations that engage in deliberate society-wide manipulation of information. I think this would be better phrased as "... legal shield to websites that only want to show certain content to its users." "[S]ociety-wide manipulation of information" would imply that everyone gets their news and information from Facebook, Twitter, etc whic…

If one is following current events, it isn't possible to avoid Twitter, Facebook and even Reddit. Mainstream news outlets often report on content from those social media sites, so even if I'm not a user, social media still effects me.

It’s helpful to use an algorithmic current events aggregator that assists in tracing original sources, such as:

https://www.memeorandum.com/

“memeorandum is an auto-generated summary of the stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now. Unlike sister sites Techmeme and Mediagazer, it is not a human-edited news outlet, but rather a media-monitoring tool for sophisticated news consumers.“

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#256

Post by Terretta »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #236
rpdillon wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I find Masnick's writing quite accomplished, and he is quite correct that there is a lot of misinformation (which he links to!) about Section 230. I agree he writes confidently about technology's intersection with the law, but I don't see that as a flaw: the Techdirt team seems to have a much better handle on these issues than the average journalist, and certainly a better understanding than the average…

Agreed. This part... >If you said "Once a company like that starts moderating content, it's no longer a platform, but a publisher" I regret to inform you that you are wrong. That’s not the argument. Not really. The argument is that these companies are removing entirely legal content they just don’t like. Their TOS pages are interpretive depending how much they dislike the poster of the content. They do this intention…

> clear they own it

On the contrary, they tend to be clear you’re assigning them right to publish worldwide in any medium in perpetuity including make money off that, not ownership.

For instance, you don’t have to get seek their permission to also publish your thoughts somewhere else, or use your own photo commercially, etc.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#257

Post by xxpor »

Majromax wrote: post #242
jakelazaroff wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. The liability shield only covers content produced by other entities, e.g. tweets. Twitter is still liable for content it produces itself, such as fact checks and trend summaries. Likewise, the New York Times is liable for the articles published by its own writers, but it bears no liability for the comments section.

But the NYT can carry liability for letters to the editor published in its dead tree format -- see https://www.rcfp.org/supreme-court-will-not-hear-letter-edit... as an example of a local newspaper being held liable for letter-to-the-editor-published defamation. The CDA draws a bright line between content "authored" by a firm and content "made available." In practice, that line is fuzzy. As a hypothetical example, Tw…

The tweet promotion is an interesting point, but the letter to the editor is easier IMO. It's assumed that a human has read and selected the letter to the editor, which is why they'd have liability. For the promoted tweet, my first reaction would be to say, if a human affirmatively promoted it, they'd be liable. If it's pure algorithm, they wouldn't be if they took it down when served a notice.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#258

Post by Acrobatic_Road »

grumple wrote: post #136
Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about Trump getting banned from twitter. I care about the coordinated takedown of parler by google, apple and soon amazon. Section 230 is supposed to protect free speech on the internet by shielding platforms of legal liability for user generated content. But if a few tech monopolies can just kick a platform off the internet because they don't like its user generated content then what the hell is the poi…

Why should these companies be forced to provide access to a platform that’s largely used for coordinating insurrection and fomenting hate?

Its not.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#259

Post by scsilver »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #179
scsilver wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started heddit.com, I am one engineer, I have 2 million users, I am making 10 dollars a month from ads and losing 10 from hosting. How do I regulate my content to protect me when 230 is taken down? Maybe the solution is partial exceptions to 230 on 10 billion dollar+ corps? It seems a more anti trust approach would solve your concerns without removing protections for small upstarts. I dont think a blanket repe…

To me heddit.com looks like a parked domain that isn't serving any content, 3rd party or not, so isn't protected by Section 230 and doesn't need to be. Hypothetical examples aren't a great argument against real world situations that have already happened, but a fake example makes me suspect you aren't arguing in good faith.

This is completely an argument in good faith, based on a readily accessible hypothetical that almost everyone on HN can put themselves in the place of. This isnt a court of law, I dont need to be personally affected in order to offer an opinion.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#260

Post by simonh »

xxpor wrote: post #257
Majromax wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the NYT can carry liability for letters to the editor published in its dead tree format -- see https://www.rcfp.org/supreme-court-will-not-hear-letter-edit... as an example of a local newspaper being held liable for letter-to-the-editor-published defamation. The CDA draws a bright line between content "authored" by a firm and content "made available." In practice, that line is fuzzy. As a hypothetical example, Tw…

The tweet promotion is an interesting point, but the letter to the editor is easier IMO. It's assumed that a human has read and selected the letter to the editor, which is why they'd have liability. For the promoted tweet, my first reaction would be to say, if a human affirmatively promoted it, they'd be liable. If it's pure algorithm, they wouldn't be if they took it down when served a notice.

That’s not the current situation under Section 230. You can even re-tweet or forward content posted by someone else and not be liable. Only the original author is liable. This is sensible baca use otherwise all sorts of innocuous relaying, trending and categorisation activity normal of forums and social media that affect the scope and visibility of posts could trigger liability.
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